


Observations

by CarrieL



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Baby-fic, Endgame-fixer, F/M, Hot tub scene, Post-Endgame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-30
Updated: 2015-11-30
Packaged: 2018-05-04 02:05:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5316167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CarrieL/pseuds/CarrieL
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An Endgame-fixer in 3 installments, covering several decades.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Observations

After what the admiral said, there was little to do but watch and wait, so Kathryn the scientist did exactly that. She observed the rainchecks on her invitations. She reviewed the duty roster and noticed how Chakotay and Seven’s off duty time now synchronized. Nobody could have missed the way they stood side by side on the bridge when Voyager emerged in the Alpha quadrant at the far end of the Borg transwarp conduit, Kathryn thought, but when she looked around, she seemed to be the only one who wasn’t focused on the miracles unfolding on the viewscreen.

When Starfleet gave the entire crew a month’s leave before debriefings, she asked Chakotay to make sure that every crew member had somewhere to go. She inquired about many of them personally. Did they have family waiting? Would they be taken care of in this potentially emotional and stressful re-entry to civilian life? Nearly everyone was going to an enthusiastic welcome, and those headed into less certain situations had friends among the crew to turn to as a plan B. Seven was in contact with relatives eager to see her. Chakotay had received a message from relatives on Trebus, explaining that they were on their way to Earth but would only have a week or so with him before debriefings began, by the time their civilian shuttle arrived. 

“You would be very welcome at my mother’s home while you wait,” Kathryn told him automatically across the desk in her ready room as they sat reviewing the crew’s plans for leaving the ship. Every scene of homecoming in her head involved leading Chakotay by the hand up the wide, whitewashed steps to her mother’s front porch. She couldn’t quite give up on it, no matter how circumstances had changed, although she was certain he’d follow Seven – Annika, she had to remember to call her Annika now – to Norway.

“Thank you, that’s very generous,” Chakotay began. “Seven had invited me, but…” his words trailed off. 

Kathryn had no desire to guess the end of that sentence. She stayed quiet, calling deliberately on her considerable self-control, until the silence became awkward. Finally she gave up and sighed in spite of herself. “But?”

“I don’t think she needs someone else around the first time she sees her family since childhood. It’ll be overwhelming enough for all of them without a guest in the house to worry about. I thought I might visit later in the month, once they’ve gotten comfortable with each other.”

Kathryn nodded. “That sounds very sensible, and very sensitive of you.” She turned back to the crew notes in her hand, wondering if he would even acknowledge her own invitation. 

“So it would be very nice to spend a little time with you and your family,” he told her in a rushed way, then swallowed and looked back to his notes as if something about that sentence made him nervous. Kathryn suddenly felt an urgent need to get out of her accustomed position opposite him, where she had spent so many happy hours. She leapt up and strode to the viewport, still clutching the pad. Being his temporary quarters until he felt that Seven and her family were ready for him was not the outcome Kathryn had imagined, but she hadn’t imagined many things. She had deliberately forestalled most of her mind’s attempts to shape a future beyond this ship, this ready room. Once they were back on Earth, there would be new imaginings and new realities. She would put one foot in front of the other. For now, Chakotay was coming home with her, and that would be good. Not perfect, but good enough.

“Any concerns over the rest of the crew?” she asked, once she’d gotten her thoughts under control.

He spun toward her in his chair, shaking his head as he took in her stiff position across the room from him. For someone who’d just invited him to her home, she didn’t seem particularly happy that he’d agreed. “Kathryn, if it would be awkward, I’m sure that B’Elanna and Tom would be – ” he began.

“No, no,” she turned back toward him with a cheerful smile on her face, “I didn’t mean to seem unwelcoming. It will be wonderful to have you, and my mother will be delighted to have someone else to spoil. Please do come. You’ll make us all so happy.” She clasped her hands in front of her, still hanging onto the pad, in her best impression of a child anticipating a birthday party. 

He chuckled and shook his head. Her ability to project whatever the occasion required never ceased to amaze him. Whatever was going on, she obviously had no intention of telling him. He held up his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay! I know better than to thwart Kathryn Janeway! I’m all yours.”

At those words, her face froze and she turned her back to him again. After a few seconds, she said in the same cheerful voice, “Glad to hear it. Now, about the rest of the crew – any problems we need to resolve?” 

He continued with the recitation of crew departure plans, never seeing the faces she was making at the viewport to keep tears from escaping. 

#

As the crew mustered its meager possessions into bags and boxes, Kathryn moved among them, deck to deck, thanking each crew member individually, making sure that all was well as they left the nest of Voyager for homes and families that had changed in unpredictable ways. She knew that Chakotay was doing the same. Sometimes they crossed each other’s paths with a cheerful wave in the corridor. She was doing her best to be enthusiastic, at any rate. His expression was something short of radiant. After a few such encounters, she began to wonder if he was already regretting his decision to visit her mother’s house. Did he anticipate some sort of scene that he wanted to avoid?

When they materialized in front of the house in the humid early hours of an Indiana summer morning, steam rising off the corn, Chakotay took a step back in shock and dropped his bag. “Kathryn!” he cried, looking from the house to her with a panicked expression.

“What is it?” she gasped, looking around for some threat, distressed at his reaction to the home she loved.

“It’s… it’s the Caretaker’s farm!”

She looked around her again. The house, the barn – yes, everything was as the Caretaker had reproduced it immediately after pulling them all to the Delta quadrant. It had seemed so natural that the alien lifeform had used a setting familiar to her, drawn from her own memories, that she hadn’t thought to mention it to the others. They had certainly had plenty of other things to think about, and in the chaos afterward she’d forgotten about it.

“Yes, the Caretaker reproduced my family farm,” she nodded. “I’m sorry I never told you. After I destroyed the array, I never thought about that setting again. I should have warned you. I’m so sorry.” She came toward him and patted his arm, trying to coax the horrified look from his face.

Finally he dropped his head and shook it, lowering his hands to his knees, as if letting go something trapped inside. “No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to spoil your homecoming that way. It just gave me a scare.”

Kathryn picked up his bag and slowly led him up the steps, her enthusiasm for home now a little dampened. This was not a good omen. Then the door opened, her mother silently enfolded her in her arms and began to cry just as Kathryn knew she would, and Kathryn forgot all about Chakotay’s reaction. At last Gretchen Janeway lifted her head and looked at the man waiting a little sheepishly behind her daughter.

“And this!” she cried, “This is your Commander Chakotay! I saw him on the news vids! You dear boy, thank you for bringing her home to me,” she breathed, stepping past Kathryn to wrap him in her arms as well. 

Chakotay looked up at Kathryn in surprise, but she only smiled and wiped at her own tears. Her mother’s words were a little embarrassing – “your Commander Chakotay” – but surely he wouldn’t think that Kathryn had given her such an idea. Speculation about onboard relationships was everywhere even before they left the ship with Tom and B’Elanna showing off Miral. He looked down at the gray head resting on his chest, eyes shut, taking delight and comfort in his sturdy presence, and put his arms around her. “You’re welcome, Ms. Janeway,” he said, “but it would be closer to the truth to say that she brought me home.”

Gretchen stepped back and took them each by one hand. “You’ll tell me all the stories,” she nodded. “And I’ll cry the whole time. Now come inside and get settled while I finish getting breakfast.” 

That first morning they spent in Indiana, Gretchen made a huge meal for her returning wanderers and shooed them outside to get some of the fresh air they’d been so lacking. Kathryn stood against the porch rail in a light summer dress, taking in changes to the property. Chakotay followed her outside and sat on the porch swing.

“It may take me a few days to work up the nerve to go into the barn,” he joked. She laughed and turned to half sit against the rail. 

“It was terrible of me not to tell you,” she said. “I can’t believe I forgot. What an awful shock!”

Chakotay laughed. “After that breakfast, I’d forgive you for anything. Real eggs, from an actual chicken!” He raised his hands as if praising the spirits for miracles and Kathryn joined his easy laughter, unable to remember the last time they had laughed freely together, and at something other than gallows humor.

“It only proves,” she answered, “that my total lack of cooking ability isn’t genetic. Come on, I’ll show you the creek. I don’t think the Caretaker got around to recreating that.”

And they were off.

#

The orchard was heavy with fruit this summer, weighing the boughs, with windfall fruit turning the grass below into a bumpy carpet. Kathryn kicked a few apples out of the way.

“Are you still planning to visit Seven?” she asked in a light tone. She didn’t like to bring it up, but he hadn’t mentioned it in nearly two weeks. They had been such relaxed, happy weeks, filled with walks and projects and games with family and neighbors. Having him with her every day in this natural way, free of duties and death threats, felt like a wonderful hallucination in the middle of a fevered Delta quadrant dream. If he was leaving to go to Seven, she needed time to prepare herself, to wake from the dream before the red alert sounded.

Chakotay grabbed a heavy branch above his head and swung himself a little as they walked between the rows. “To tell you the truth, I haven’t spoken with her. She sent a few short messages early on to say that everything was going well, and after that I just forgot about it.” He picked a small apple that was ripening early and bit into it with relish. “Not bad,” he said, as if there was nothing heavier on his mind than the sweetness of summer fruit.

Kathryn observed his lighthearted reaction to her very serious question and clasped her hands behind her back. She walked on beside him, contemplating his words. He seemed to have let go of the idea of spending time alone with Seven without the slightest angst. “Well, you’re entirely welcome to stay here if you’re enjoying Mom’s hospitality. She loves it. And I know she’d be happy to have your family here too.”

The row of trees led them onward, pacing more and more slowly, along the curve of the hill. Chakotay shoved his hands in his pockets. “You’re sure it wouldn’t be too much to ask? It’s my sister and her two kids, along with my cousins Teka and Loki. They used to be a real handful as kids. We were best friends.”

Kathryn smiled at the image of Chakotay as a rambunctious boy. She’d seen more of that child here than ever before, amazed at seeing her reserved first officer dive into the creek to catch frogs and climb trees to get a view of the whole valley. He looked at her strangely all of a sudden, and she realized that she must have been wearing her happy thoughts on her face – very unusual for her too. She looked away from him and answered: “You’ve met my mother, right? Nothing would make her happier than to fill the house with family.”

“Then it would make me very happy to have them here.”

#

Sekaya stepped into the empty space next to Gretchen where she stood at the rear window of the kitchen, invisible from outside in the darkened house. Kathryn and Chakotay stood outside in the grass, pointing out constellations and planets to Vata and Seppo. 

“Is it possible that they can’t see it?” Sekaya asked the older woman. 

Gretchen sighed. “I can’t imagine how, but you may have noticed that these two are among the more stubborn specimens of the species.”

“What have they been doing these last three weeks?” Sekaya wondered. 

Gretchen gestured helplessly at the scene on the lawn. “This sort of thing! They’ve fixed everything mechanical on the place. My replicator works better than it ever did. Chakotay’s blessed the orchard and they’re building something in the barn I’m afraid to ask about.”

Sekaya leaned forward onto the window sill. “They’re happy.” The two women smiled at each other, then looked back at the charming scene on the lawn in consternation. “I think it’s been a very long time since either of them was truly happy. Maybe they don’t recognize it.”

“If Kathryn thinks she’s being pushed into something,” Gretchen began, and Sekaya interrupted: “she’ll put up a fight, just like my brother would. No, it has to be their idea.”

“The way things are going,” Gretchen said, “I’m afraid they won’t get the idea until it’s too late. And this Borg woman I’ve been hearing about….”

Sekaya shook her head. “Don’t worry about that. Leave this to me. Just give me a little time alone with my brother.”

#

After breakfast the next morning, Sekaya asked Chakotay for a tour of the farm and left the children with their cousins. With a look over her shoulder at Sekaya, Gretchen led Kathryn off to the attic to sort through things stored there when Voyager was declared lost. 

First, Chakotay showed his sister the simple flying machine he and Kathryn were building out of wood and cloth to entertain the neighborhood children. His woodworking skills were better than she remembered. He pointed out the sling seats and wings made of light sailcloth. “Kathryn’s idea,” he beamed. “She’s a sailor. The plane will be strong and light. If we get done on schedule, Vata and Seppo can try it.”

“You think I’m letting my children fly in that thing?” Sekaya exclaimed. 

Chakotay looked wounded. “I assure you, it’s very airworthy. Even if you don’t trust me, you should trust Kathryn. She’s a brilliant engineer,” he said, then looked away, hiding his face.

Sekaya smiled and stepped around the craft toward him. “Do you realize that you haven’t stopped talking about her since we got here?”

“I’m sorry,” he muttered, rearranging some tools on the workbench. “Force of habit. We’ve worked together so closely all these years. I’ll try to be a better conversationalist. How is your native seed project coming?”

“It’s coming fine, but that’s not why I mentioned it. Chakotay,” she came up to the workbench and stood beside him to get a better look at the expressions he was trying to shield from her. “What will happen after your debriefings? Where will you go?”

He relaxed his shoulders. “Starfleet has floated some unofficial suggestions. Maybe an academic post, or a research assignment, or even another command if I pass the psychological review and get my commission reinstated. I haven’t decided if I’m interested in any of it. And of course I’ll come visit you. They’re planning to give us an even longer leave afterward. I thought if might see if there was a role for me in building the new colony.” 

Chakotay looked at her expectantly, but Sekaya only smoothed the work surface with her hands. “And Kathryn? What will she do?”

He picked up a chisel and thumbed its sharp edge. “She has a lot of options too. There’s talk of a promotion to the admiralty, an ambassadorship, or maybe another command for her too. I get the feeling she’ll have her pick of offers.” He sighed and lined up the chisel in an even line with the other tools. “She’s a thoroughbred, Sekaya. She was born for this. It was only an accident that we were thrown together.”

“A very lucky accident, it would seem,” Sekaya said, glancing toward the aircraft. “You make an extraordinary team.”

“We made an extraordinary team.” Chakotay gave a shove to the neat row of tools, knocking several out of alignment. “I let her down in so many ways. It’s been a gift, having this time with her to restore our friendship a little. She and her family have been incredibly generous. But it’s time for me to get out of her way and let her brilliant career resume.”

Sekaya moved her hand over the tools, restoring order. “Have you talked to her about this?”

Chakotay pulled his hands into loose fists. “About what?”

“About getting out of her way? Leaving Earth? Does she know?”

He crossed his arms and stared at the tools. “Not exactly. We’ve talked about some of the Starfleet options. She probably thinks that’s where I’m headed.”

“Does she think you’re in her way?”

“No, of course not, Sekaya. She’s not like that. She would never see it that way, but that’s how it is. There was a time when I thought I might have… some other role in her life, but I blew it. She doesn’t need me hanging around complicating her life.”

Sekaya lightly hummed a few bars of a gathering song they both knew from childhood, then threw over her shoulder before walking out of the barn, “Don’t you think she deserves to have some say in that?” 

#

“Remember?” Gretchen exclaimed. “You wore that to dance the dying swan in year 11. When they told us you were gone, I just couldn’t let it go.”

They’d been in the attic most of the morning, making orderly piles of Kathryn’s things to save, recycle, use, and give away. Now she stood and held the white costume to her. “I remember,” she breathed. “I danced the swan on Voyager once, you know. For talent night.”

“You didn’t!” her mother cried, leaning forward with a big laugh from where she sat on an old trunk. “Oh, I would have loved to see that. In front of your entire crew? You cheeky little thing!”

“Yes!” Kathryn affirmed with a laugh. “It was right before…,” she trailed off and her eyes grew troubled. “Well, right before Chakotay and I got in an accident and – I guess we cheated death again that time. He was always there to pull me back from the brink. I can’t imagine – I mean, I couldn’t imagine a day without him, out there.” Abruptly, she folded the costume and shoved it back into its box.

“He means a great deal to you,” Gretchen said.

“Well, of course he does. All the crew do and we worked together as closely as anyone.” The costume wasn’t fitting well into the box and Kathryn commenced shoving it. Gretchen descended with waving hands and soothing noises to take the box and carefully fold in stray corners of the delicate costume. Kathryn sat back on her bottom in the dust and stared at the ceiling, her face blank and somewhat bereft.

Gretchen sat down again on the trunk and asked, “Where will he go after debriefings?”

Kathryn shook her head and held still. “He’ll have some options with Starfleet, I think. But I get a feeling he hasn’t bought into that. I think he might follow his family back to the colony.”

“So no more word from the drone?” Gretchen had gleaned enough information about Seven to understand the general state of things without ever asking directly.

“No,” Kathryn said. “They seem to have let contact lapse. He hasn’t mentioned spending any more time with her. I don’t know what to think. It must have been – ” she waved her hand in exasperation, “another of his blondes.”

“Another of his blondes?” Gretchen asked, tilting her head in concern.

Kathryn nodded. “He had a string of them. Human and humanoid, but the standard model was blonde, gorgeous, and statuesque. I guess that’s his type.” Gretchen caught Kathryn’s self-conscious glance at her own petite, athletic shape.

“I see,” Gretchen said with a frown. “How did you feel about that?”

Kathryn met her mother’s eyes with a spark in her own. “How do you think it made me feel? I had no right.” She clenched her fists and leaned forward. “But I wanted to punch her lights out every time. And then his.”

Gretchen smiled and let that settle. “But now, you’re just going to let him go without a fight? Doesn’t sound like my Katie.”

Kathryn leaned back on her hands “Come on, Mother, what would you have me do? Throw myself at him? He’s been here three weeks. We’re outside the chain of command and we spend almost every waking moment together. If something was going to happen, it would have happened. We both keep everything inside. He’s just – he’s moved on, and I need to accept it.”

“Are you sure about that, Kathryn?” Gretchen asked. “Are you absolutely sure? Because regretting is awfully long.”

#

On the last evening before they were to report in San Francisco for debriefing, Kathryn paused at a place in the orchard where the slope of the hill opened up a view of the verdant valley beyond, a scene of rolling hay pastures, with draft horses in the distance. Chakotay was beside her for a last walk around the land, something they’d made a daily habit. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you about,” she said.

“Me too,” he said, “but you go first.”

His tone was so easy that it made her nervous. He couldn’t be expecting what she had come to say. “No, you go ahead.”

“All right,” he said in that same relaxed tone. He dropped onto the grass and leaned back on his hands with his long legs stretched toward the horizon. “I’ve been talking to Sekaya, and she thinks I need to run something by you.”

“Oh?” Kathryn said, kneeling beside him and smoothing her shorts. “What’s that?”

He contemplated the shades of blue in the distance. “I’ve been thinking about going to the Trebus colony after debriefings. Giving up Starfleet to work at the rebuilding effort. She thought I should talk to you about it.”

Kathryn hesitated, then said with conviction, “Of course I would help you in any way I can. You know that. You only have to ask. You might not even have to do that if I can figure out some way to support the colony before you think of it.” She smiled broadly at him, transmitting all her good will.

He had to smile in return, but something in her smile was sad, and it made him cast down his eyes to where she was pulling grass. “So, you wouldn’t mind?” he asked.

“Mind?” she echoed. The word hung on the apple-scented air. She let grass fall through her fingers and scatter on her lap. “Well, I… I’m not your keeper. I’m not your captain. I have no right to mind.”

“I know that. But would you, anyway?” 

He was watching her with such interest that it made her uncomfortable. She didn’t know what he was after and she’d prepared herself for a certain sort of conversation. She turned her head slightly away from him and contemplated the nearest apple tree. “I wouldn’t want you to make such an important decision based on my… convenience.”

He smiled again. Sometimes it was like taming a Trakan beast, getting her real opinion out of her. “So you would find it inconvenient? You sound like Seven now.”

Kathryn straightened a little and her hand stilled on the grass. “Oh? Have you been in touch with her?”

“No. We seem to have realized pretty quickly that we have no need of each other when we’re surrounded by our real families.”

“But you’ve only had yours for a week,” she said with genuine sympathy. “I wish it could have been longer.”

“It was,” he said, looking at her with open, earnest eyes.

She saw his meaning immediately, but said, “What do you mean?” Nothing could be left unsaid on this day. She had to know.

He paused, then leaned over to take her hand as he launched into carefully chosen words. “I don’t say it to make you obligated to me – you’ve done so much already to make me feel welcome here – but Kathryn, you’re my home. You have been for a long time. I will cherish this friendship no matter where I go.”

She lowered her eyes and let her fingertips curl around his. Friendship. No matter where I go. He thought of them as friends, and he was leaving Earth. “You will always be welcome here. My mother adores you.”

“What about you?”

Did she adore him? Yes. But that wasn’t what he was asking. “I’ll be off on some new assignment, I suppose, but we’ll keep in touch, won’t we?”

He studied the back of her hand. “People always say that. I think we’ll try, but it’ll be hard over so much distance. I’ll miss you every day, but I’ll hear from you less and less.”

“You’re probably right,” she said with a little sigh. “I’ll miss you too.” She reached over and patted the hand holding hers. “I’d always hoped that you’d come here, you know. I mean, that you’d come home with me, see the farm, meet my family. It means a lot. And I’m so happy I got to meet a little of your family too. Thank you.”

“I’ve enjoyed it very much. You’re the one who’s been generous. And I don’t know how I can ever repay your mother.”

“It was her pleasure, believe me.” She sat up and pulled her hand away, resting it in her lap. “I have to confess an ulterior motive.”

“What’s that, Kathryn?” His attentive posture hadn’t changed, but there was something reserved about him that worried her, as if he was already withdrawing from her. 

“When I imagined you coming here, I imagined us together. I know it must sound foolish now, after all that’s happened, but there it is, this little dream I held onto. I’m glad to have had a part of it, even if I can’t have all of it. It has been like family, having you here. I’ll remember it all my life.” She spoke her words to the distant hills, unable to look at him.

Beside her, she heard only the small rustle of his hands knotting together in his lap. After a long pause, he said: “There have been times when I would have fallen at your feet to hear words like that.”

Her heart broke, just like that. It was neither loud nor dramatic, but she felt the distinct crack of something breaking within her. This was how she would be from now on: broken. It wasn’t much of a surprise, and she felt that she would probably be able to bear it, after a while, like she’d born everything else. She nodded a little and asked, “But not anymore?”

He was bent over, his head bowed. “I tried very hard not to love you anymore. I tried to love other people, I tried to talk myself out of romantic involvement entirely – none of it worked.”

“So then, you’re saying…?”

He rubbed his face with his hands. “I’m saying you’d be getting a scarred old heart, Kathryn. It’s not what you deserve. You deserve someone who can sweep you off your feet. Some shiny admiral, not someone whose greatest achievement has been making Starfleet’s most wanted list.”

“I don’t care about being swept off my feet,” she said, still sitting quite still, not looking at him, staring down at her own hands clenched in her lap, not daring to let her mind follow where the words seemed to be leading. “I only care about you. If you have a scarred old heart you’re willing to give me.”

He sat up and leaned close to her. “After all this time? After everything? You’d still have me?”

She took a long time to answer, staring down at the scattered, overripe fruit on the grass. When she finally spoke, her voice was less steady than usual. “I still love you. But I don’t want to be your consolation prize.”

“Oh Kathryn,” he said, closing the gap between them, scooting right next to her. “I didn’t mean it that way.” He ran a hand over her hair, admiring how it gleamed red in the dying sunlight. He had been astonished the last few weeks at how different she looked in the radiant light of her home planet. Her rank fell away and he had forgotten, sometimes for hours at a time, that any relationship existed between them other than the joy of some shared project. In those hours he fell in love with her all over again, then afterward it was as if he woke up to all the complications that existed between them, and grieved. “I just wish that I were still the man you knew on that planet where we were stranded. I wish we’d never hurt each other, that everything was still fresh and perfect.”

There were tears in her eyes but she struggled to contain them as she shook her head. “I don’t want fresh and perfect. I’m not fresh and perfect. I’m not the woman you deserve either. I’ve made so many mistakes. It didn’t surprise me at all that you wanted somebody else.” Her shoulders trembled.

At this he took her head in both hands and raised her face to look at him. “That’s the cold, miraculous truth of it, Kathryn – I know all your mistakes. I know all your flaws. I know every place where the Doctor has stitched you back together and waved his magic wand over your scars. And I’ve never loved anybody the way that I love you.”

She looked up at him and hiccupped. “Really?”

He nodded and placed a brief, sweet kiss on her lips. “Really.” He laid back on the grass and pulled her close to him, ignoring the bumpy ground, simply beside himself to have Kathryn wrapped up in his arms, her breath warm through his light shirt. They lay there as the sun set and the breeze rose in the tops of the apple trees, lifting the oppressive heat of day. She shivered and cuddled closer to him. “We should go in,” he said.

“Yes,” she answered from her snug place on his shoulder. “Chakotay, I’ve been thinking. I could come with you to Trebus, help with the rebuilding. If you want.”

It was getting too dark to see her features clearly, even if he were to twist to get a good look at her face. “What about the admiralty, Kathryn? Your career?”

She made a little wiggling movement that would probably look like a shrug if she weren’t wrapped around him. “I’ve had the adventure I came for with Starfleet. Now I want to build something. I want a home.”

“It won’t be much,” he warned. “It’ll be a hut with unreliable power. But I can promise you a bathtub.”

“Well, as long as the bathtub is guaranteed.” He felt her smile against his chest.

“Do you have any idea how much I love you?” he whispered. She squirmed up to get close enough to his face to kiss it, longer this time, both of them nearly overcome with emotion.

“No,” she answered. “You’ll have to teach me.”

“That I will,” he said, his smile a beacon in the dark as he rose and pulled her to her feet. “That I will.” They moved off toward the house, the small figure tucked in close under the arm of the larger one, as the trees murmured and scattered the richest fruit of all.


	2. The Investor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the new Trebus colony, someone finds himself in over his head.

The Federation provided precious little information on life in the Trebus colony before depositing me like so much cargo at the beginning of my brief due diligence visit. I knew nothing about the local language or form of government. Even the name of my local contact was incomplete, just one word: Chakotay. No title, no first name, so that I’d be wrong-footed from the moment I met the … man? I was assuming a human, because the colonists were mostly human, but beyond that I had few clues. 

Time was very short. The Tevelon investment syndicate needed the colony’s new mini-FTL technology to construct our planned deep space communications network on time and on budget. I was to evaluate the quality of the technology and the colony’s ability to produce the needed units on our schedule. I could only hope that the colonists would cooperate. In this backwater on the edge of the quadrant, I was hopeful that they’d be glad for a little attention from a potential major investor, with the accompanying promise of logistical support for their development projects. 

One could never be sure. There had been, for example, the Nivalese, who’d chased me back to the landing site with pitchforks at the sight of the hovercraft’s corporate logo, which they associated with past ill-advised forays into DNA harvesting. My assignments in this vein had been uncomfortable, to say the least. Our proprietary translator is a fickle technology, sometimes providing for excellent communications, other times entirely missing the meaning of fundamental cultural concepts, leaving me scrambling to compensate for mortifying misunderstandings and faux pas, many of which I couldn’t blame entirely on the technology. 

Because I was still a relatively junior executive at the time, the societies I was sent to contact that season were exceedingly primitive by Federation standards, generally only open to research and investment because of their historical connections to the Federation and access to Federation technology. Trebus seemed to be an exception in its ability to produce advanced technologies even by Federation standards, but that didn’t mean that the living conditions would be civilized. I’d learned to travel like early Earth explorers Lewis and Clark, with everything I might need on my back. The food invariably disturbed my stomach and the lodgings were consistently subpar, but such is the life of a corporate due diligence officer in the far reaches of the Alpha quadrant. 

The landing site featured a large, locked storage shed and a single trail into the jungle. Nobody was there to meet me, which was hardly unusual. I strapped on my heavy pack and began to follow the single, well-cleared path into the jungle.

I walked for most of an hour before reaching any sign of human habitation. Finally there were a few empty huts – no better word for them – whose occupants I guessed to be out in the abundant fields beyond. These shelters did not appear to be constructed from Starfleet materials or according to any modern architectural principles. This was typical. The primitives always thought they could improve on centuries of Federation expertise. Their “indigenous architecture” usually dissolved in the first hard rain, but this structure looked relatively stable. 

At last I came to a hut with a few half-full glasses of water on a table outside, and children’s toys scattered near the path. There was no door to knock on, only a colorful weaving hanging over the door aperture, and nobody around, so I began to call, “Hello! Anybody home?”

After a few minutes, a heavily pregnant woman in a large sombrero, clearly one of the colonists, walked around from the extensive garden plots visible behind the hut, carrying a basket of freshly harvested greens balanced on one hip. A small girl toddled beside her, holding her mother’s finger, and what appeared to be a long-haired boy, slightly larger, followed behind, carrying another basket of fresh produce. This too was typical. The more primitive colonies were in such a hurry to populate that they failed to observe the most basic family planning. Nonetheless, gentleman that I am, I dropped my pack and rushed to relieve her of her burden. 

“Just carry it inside,” she told me, in unaccented Standard, which in turn relieved me. This research would be easier if my interviews weren’t mediated by that damned universal translator. When I’d set down the basket in the tidy kitchen space, I turned to introduce myself.

“I’m Dr. Peter Fellows,” I said, putting a hand to my chest in the proper traditional Trebusian greeting for a man to a woman. At least I had that much information. “I’m the Tevelon representative. I’m here to evaluate the feasibility of investment in the colony’s new FTL technology with the assistance of a … the name I have looks like Cha-ko-tay. Is that correct?”

The woman nodded as she kicked off her sandals at the door – there it was, my first misstep already, failing to remove my shoes – and moved to rinse her hands with a pitcher and basin on the kitchen counter. She seemed accustomed to living without indoor plumbing – probably had never had it and didn’t miss it. Her face seemed mature. Back on Earth, I would guess her to be in her mid-forties, but here, of course, she was probably much younger and simply displaying the aging to be expected of a hard life of manual labor and constant child-bearing. I wondered in passing if she was even literate, but that sort of research was beyond the scope of my assignment. It didn’t matter how educated the average member of the colony was, as long as their scientists could do the job. Right now, I needed to determine whether or not this outpost would even survive, and what sort of assistance was likely to be required to complete our project.

“I suppose so,” she said. “I hadn’t heard about it, but he’s always taking on this sort of thing. He’ll be here a little later. You must have had a long voyage. Please, tell me about it. And would you like something to drink? To eat?” As she spoke, the boy, perhaps three or four years old, ran in barefoot to ask for a glass of water in another language that the translator handled easily. A known tongue, then. Probably the native language of Trebus. At first I couldn’t be sure from the child’s clothing – a long smock that could be mistaken for a dress – and its long hair if it was a boy or a girl, but then he turned and his tanned features were clearly masculine.

“Eday, this is a guest of the colony, Dr. Fellows. He’s here to do research. Say hello,” the woman told the boy, who ran up and hugged my leg before chugging his water and racing back outside. It was becoming awkward that I hadn’t obtained her name, but somehow she wasn’t giving me the chance to ask. Before I knew what was happening, I was at a table under a small shelter outside the hut, with a cup of tea and a plate of warm corn tortillas before me, and my hostess was standing at a workbench under the wide eaves of the hut. She had to reach awkwardly around her belly to get at the small engine on the bench, but she seemed to handle her tools competently.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. …” I tried, but she only glanced at me with a charming, crooked smile. “I need to find Mr. Chakotay and figure out where I’ll be living and working. Could you point me in the right direction?”

“Your first lesson will be patience, young man,” she said, reaching for a few more tools farther down the bench. “I asked you about your voyage,” she repeated the inquiry in an encouraging tone. I had no desire to insult the woman who had offered such generous hospitality to a stranger, but I needed to reach the colony’s leaders to explain my research objectives and what I would require of them. Idling away the day with children and a woman who appeared to be a farmer’s wife was not advancing the tight schedule I needed to keep. 

With a sigh, I picked up a tortilla and began to describe the journey from Earth. The boy interrupted with enthusiastic questions – he was clearly older than my first estimate. The woman had to leave her tinkering to chase the little girl from time to time, so my conversation was more with the boy than with her. Just as I was getting ready to excuse myself and seek out an adult to talk to, footsteps announced a large person coming up the path, followed shortly by a tall man with an elaborate tattoo on the left side of his forehead.

“Well hello!” he said, offering his hand. “I saw that we had an arrival earlier, but I was tied up with our water purification project. Sorry to make you wait. You must be from Tevelon. I’m Chakotay, I was in contact with your scientists.”

“Oh yes!” I said, jumping up to take the offered hand. “Dr. Peter Fellows. I’ve been waiting with, um” – I realized that I still had no name for the farmer’s wife.

“With my family,” he said, looking around him with a beaming smile. The woman approached and stood on tiptoe to kiss him before disappearing back into the hut. “I’m sure they made you welcome.”

“Your family?” I repeated. I had expected the head man of such a technologically advanced colony to live in more modern conditions. Suddenly, my hopes for the success of the mini-FTL technology plummeted. 

“Come on, I’ll show you around,” he said. He lifted the little girl onto his shoulders and waved to the boy to follow us as he took off back down the trail. I had little choice but to shoulder my pack and follow. When I glanced back over my shoulder, the farmer’s wife was standing at the edge of the small fenced enclosure around the hut, one hand on her heavy belly, waving goodbye. I wondered for a moment what she thought of all the new advances to her humble, traditional society – perhaps she was the traditionalist who insisted on this lifestyle? – but I was too pressed to keep up with Chakotay’s pace to wonder for long.

After a long lecture on the colony’s agricultural and educational advances, conducted while we marched at a punishing speed over rolling terrain, Chakotay stopped at another humble hut where the similarly primitive inhabitants offered us tea. I sat down in gratitude, but I was frustrated that we still had not arrived at the technology facility.

“So, what do you think of our little endeavor?” Chakotay asked me.

“Very impressive,” I answered out of a guest’s duty of politeness. If anything, it looked like the barest survival going on out here. “But where is the research facility?” The cutting edge technology coming out of the Trebus Workshop, as the engine components we had seen were labeled, was a central element of this emerging economy. I needed to see the research laboratory and production facilities. I had been craning my neck for a view of a modern building any time we came to a high place in the trail, but so far nothing had revealed itself. 

Chakotay gestured back into the jungle we’d just traversed. I had lost all sense of direction during our wanderings. “You’ve already seen it,” he said.

I chuckled at his wry sense of humor. “Yes, it looks like quite the operation. But I will need to meet the lead scientist and observe the development process.”

He settled the little boy on one knee and the little girl on the other. He turned to the woman with a look I couldn’t interpret. “Do you want to tell him, Pallas, or should I?” he asked.

The woman filled my tea cup while shaking her head. “You met Kathryn Janeway and you didn’t realize it? I don’t have high hopes for your career as a due diligence officer, Dr. Fellows.”

I looked around, wondering if there were other people in the hut that I hadn’t properly noticed yet. “Captain Kathryn Janeway? Where? When?”

At my words, Chakotay and the others began to laugh heartily, clearly at my expense.

“I don’t understand,” I spluttered. “I haven’t met any Starfleet personnel since our last supply stop yesterday. When would I have met Captain Janeway?”

“She loves to play that game, Chakotay,” the woman called Pallas said. “She’ll be sorry she missed the punchline.”

Finally, Chakotay turned to me, his eyes bright with amusement, kissing the blue-eyed little girl on his lap as he did so. “You did meet her. The children’s mother, Dr. Fellows – my wife, Kathryn Janeway.”

I could feel the blood drain out of my face. “That was – that barefoot, pregnant woman, that was Captain Janeway?” I tried to remember if I’d said anything to her that was so condescending I would never be able to recover her good will. My mind was blank, and terrified. If I had soured Tevelon’s relationship with Janeway, I’d get fired for sure. Why hadn’t anyone told me she was involved? Why hadn’t I recognized that famous face? I knew the answer to that question. She had been out of uniform, tanned, pregnant, wearing a fairly silly hat, and most of all, not playing the role I expected her to play. I wanted to punch myself in the face. “And her project, on the workbench?” I was mortified, but I had to ask. My voice sounded embarrassingly weak.

“The prototype for our new micro-drive. She says she’s almost done.”

My mind reeled. The prototype had been right there, less than five meters from me, and I hadn’t recognized it. She must think me a total incompetent. “But how can she – doesn’t it require an advanced laboratory? Simulated weightlessness? How does she compensate for …” I lapsed into silence, mentally bowled over by the significance of what I had seen. I must have been making helpless movements with my mouth without speaking, because Chakotay suddenly spoke up again. 

“When you made do for as long as we did in the Delta quadrant, you don’t have a lot of patience for constructing elaborate facilities to get the job done,” he said in a tone that showed no annoyance, only residual amusement.

I sat and thought for a minute before opening my mouth again, trying to come up with words that wouldn’t be as offensive as the first ones that came to mind. “Please forgive me for the question,” I said at last, “but you are people who have lived most of your lives at the forefront of technology and exploration. How is it that you chose to live in … this environment?”

Chakotay snugged his children closer to him and smiled again. The man smiled constantly, as if everything he saw delighted him. Coming from a family background and a profession in which people rarely smile at each other, I found this more than a little disturbing. I wondered if he were entirely sane. “That world is still available to us any time we want it,” he said. “Starfleet proposes new missions to us on a regular basis. But we have everything we want here for now, and a wonderful life for the children. They bathe in hot springs every morning, they eat food fresh from the garden, they play all over the colony with the whole commFederation watching over them and teaching them, and they’re safe from most modern pathogens and from the violence that’s become so prevalent on Earth. We consider it paradise.”

“I see,” I said. This seemed like a naïve and starry-eyed explanation for self-exile from the modern world, but I wasn’t about to start arguing with a potentially lucrative technology vendor, no matter what kind of cult he was running. We sat quietly together for several minutes, finishing our tea. Then I told Chakotay, “If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to go back and talk to Captain Janeway a little.” I hoped my voice sounded humble yet not completely abject. I still had to negotiate with these people.

With another of those blinding smiles, he rose. “Oh, I’m sure she’s waiting for you by now,” he said. “Barefoot and pregnant and spitting fire. I can’t wait to see her.” He started back up the trail at the same high-speed lope, bearing his daughter on his shoulders, the little boy jogging along behind his father as if he could do it all day. I hesitated for a moment, suddenly very afraid of my second interview with the famous captain and brilliant engineer I had so presumptuously dismissed as an insignificant farmer’s wife. But of course, there I was in the middle of her jungle with no sense of direction to speak of, and once again I had little choice but to fall in line behind Chakotay and the children and face my fate.


	3. The Blessing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A newcomer seeks Janeway's blessing.

“It’s absolutely out of the question,” I declared, loudly enough that anyone within earshot need not doubt my sincerity, then let the screen door slam behind me for emphasis. I shoved my gardening hat on my head – normally an unchallenged signal that I require peace and quiet – and started down the back porch steps.

“Mama, please!” Mabel shouted, running after me, just as adamant. She was still wearing the snug regulation tank top from under her flight suit. The muscles in her arms were ropey and well defined. She’d taken her hair out of its braid so that it hung wavy and wild around her shoulders. She had no idea how powerful and beautiful she was. I lengthened my stride to make her chase me.

“Obviously, you can marry whomever you choose. This isn’t the Middle Ages. But you’re far too young, and I will not give my blessing to a union of our family with that self-important, condescending, stuffed shirt Fellows and his vulgar clan of media capitalists. I’m not celebrating Prixin or anything else with them, wedding or no wedding. They’d want to film the whole thing and sell it to the newsvids. Anything for a few credits!” I glared at Mabel. She took no notice whatsoever.

She matched my stride easily – she got her height from her father, luckily – as we descended toward the garden behind the old family farmhouse. “He’s not like that, Mama. He wants to ask Papa for my hand. It’s important to him.”

I rolled my eyes. “Of course it is. Because he thinks of you as property to be handed over by one man to another. Some sort of prize to set on the mantel.”

Mabel punched one hand with the other. “I told you, he’s not like that. He’s just sweet, and old-fashioned. He’s nothing like his father. You’d know that if you’d finally spend some time with him.” 

I never should have let her father teach her to box. It’s made her far too aggressive. Not that there was ever any chance of that obstreperous little girl becoming a lady. Pool shark that she is, it’s probably better that she knows how to get out of a bar fight in one piece. But I could hardly let her wrong-foot me on something as important as this. “I’m sorry that my obligations advising on Odysseus III and resolving the Delal diplomatic crisis didn’t allow me to spend quality time with the scion of the Fellows clan,” I answered, gesturing perhaps a little melodramatically, “but I think the rest of the quadrant would thank me for averting interplanetary warfare.” 

Mabel imitated my eye roll perfectly, tossing her black hair. “I know how important your work is. But isn’t this just a little important too?”

I stopped to face her. “Of course it’s important, darling. I just want to get to enjoy a little time with you before we discuss it. I’ve seen you so rarely since you first started your pilot training. Please, let’s just spend a little time in the garden and talk about it later.”

“All right, Mama,” Mabel agreed with badly hidden impatience. “But this isn’t over. And I’ve never seen the point of messing around in the dirt when I could be flying.”

Ah yes, my daughter indeed. I wrapped my arm around her waist. Her arm falls easily onto my shoulders, as tall as she is. She reminds me of another statuesque young woman I once mentored, except that Mabel is infinitely more human and loving and lively. If anything, she’s taken up her father’s lifelong project of softening my hard edges. I’m so proud of her. I want so much for her. If this man is what she really wants, well … first I need to know what my husband thinks. He’s always three steps ahead on this sort of thing. 

#

That night I padded out of the bathroom barefoot in the bright blue silk robe my husband had given me for my last birthday – a significant birthday involving a zero, on which I was required to start taking my full pension, whether I had any intention of retiring or not. I paused before the large mirror above the dresser and pushed at my hair in dissatisfaction.

“I’ll never get tired of looking at you in that color,” my husband said from the bed, where he was reviewing new first contact reports from a deep space mission on which we are advising.

I glanced over at him. He is still a fit and attractive man, after all these years, even peering over his reading lenses with silver hair falling onto his face. The sight of him made me smile. “You’re wearing your reading glasses. You can’t even see me, you blind old man. If you could, you’d see that this new haircut makes me look like the cranky prison matron in some trashy lesbian holonovel.”

He rested his glasses on the bedside table and came to stand behind me. As hideous as it is, at least the bright red shade my stylist chose contrasts nicely with my eyes and the robe. The cut is short, and tends to stand up in all directions. And there is no denying that my body has taken a matronly turn in recent years, which bothers me no end. I can still exhaust most cadets during a training exercise, but it’s never enough. I have always held myself to entirely different standards.

His shoulder length hair dropped onto my neck as he wrapped his arms just under my generous breasts – always one of his favorite positions, even if my breasts aren’t quite where they used to be. “I happen to have a secret fantasy about a red-headed prison matron,” he murmured in my ear as his lips attacked the lobe. “This one in particular.”

“Oh really?” I asked, settling my hands on his. “Do tell.”

“It involves the hot tub.” His hands moved to the tie on my robe. “I have it ready to go. And a bottle of wine chilling.”

“You wouldn’t be trying to soften me up, would you?” I lowered my chin and examined him through dangerously narrowed eyes.

He looked back with a blinking gaze full of innocence and sincerity. “Soften you up? Why in the world would I need to do that? I seem to have you exactly where I want you.”

“Mm-hm. Mabel talked to you, didn’t she? About that Fellows fellow?” I tried to catch his eye but he was already moving.

He backed toward the patio door, one hand drawing me after him. “What about him?”

“You know what I’m talking about. She wants to marry him. He wants to ask you for her hand, of all the offensive, archaic ideas.” I tried to halt our progress toward the tub, but he was having none of it. 

We stepped outside to the patio enclosure, open to the stars at the far end of the new addition to the farmhouse. He shucked off his pajama bottoms and stepped in. “My lady?” he offered with a grin, smiling at me stark naked while he held out his hand. Even after nearly a quarter century of marriage, I haven’t tired of that view either.

I shook my head. “You are incorrigible, have I told you that?” I shrugged off my robe and tossed it on the back of a chair.

“Do tell.” His grin widened as he helped me step into the water. As I settled back onto the seat, moving for just the right position in the water currents, he relaxed beside me and handed me a glass of wine. “You know,” he said, “I asked your mother for your hand.” 

“You did not!” I exclaimed, snatching my glass from him. “I would have sent you packing to Trebus alone if I’d known you did any such thing!”

“I asked your mother for your hand,” he continued, as if I hadn’t spoken, although he slid his hand under my neck in a massaging grip that he knows relaxes me to the point of stupor, “because I wanted her to understand that I was prepared to take her late husband’s place as the father of the family. I wanted her to know that I would be there for her, and that nothing would ever separate me from you and our children, and grandchildren.”

“Grandchildren!” I cried, sitting up. “Who said anything about grandchildren? She’s not pregnant, is she? It would be just like her to tell you first.”

“She’s not pregnant, darling,” he said, just lying there with his eyes shut as if nothing in the world were wrong. “She’s in love.”

I settled back with a sigh. “And out of all the males of all the species on all the inhabited planets, she had to pick this one. I swear she’s doing it to torture me.”

I could almost feel him smile. “She is your daughter. I recall a little hubbub at headquarters when you resigned your commission and ran off to a primitive colony at the edge of the quadrant with some renegade.”

He still loves to bring that up at every opportunity. “So, so different,” I said. “For one thing, I was a grown woman with a successful career already established. I knew I’d have something to come back to if I wanted it.”

“Mabel isn’t talking about abandoning her career. She’s one of the best test pilots in the fleet – and so is Andrew. They compete with each other. I suspect it’s why they fell so hard. There’s nothing like going head to head with someone every single day to make you appreciate them.”

When I looked over, he was smiling at me, dimples and all. “You’re enjoying this,” I accused, but I let my hand reach over to settle on his thigh. He laughed, the happy rumble moving right through his body and into mine. He’s always been able to do that – transmit his mood to me by the simplest touch. At this late stage in our lives together, I rely on it like a drug. Sometimes his touch is the only thing that can soothe me when some fresh crisis has me running on pure caffeine and adrenalin. I can’t imagine what I’ll do if he dies first.

His hand kept working at my neck and shoulders. I let my head loll toward him. “I would have thought you got your pound of flesh out of Fellows back on Trebus. Why are you still holding a grudge against him?” he asked.

It was my turn to laugh. “I did put him in his place, didn’t I? The look on his face when all of you came back up the path. I think he almost would rather have gone back and resigned from Tevelon rather than talk to me again.”

“I was thinking more of the three-day lecture in quantum mechanics and the reprimand you insisted on Tevelon inserting into his file before you’d sign off on the technical specs.”

I slid my hand up to his hip, under the water. “Do you think I was too hard on him?”

“I’ll let you be the judge of hard,” he answered in a low voice as he slid my hand to his groin. He was hard, all right – the same sexual perpetual motion machine he has been since the first night all those years ago when we snuck in from the orchard to join frantically and almost silently on the floor of the bedroom next to my mother’s, because the bed springs all over this old house used to creak like an intruder alert. 

Not that I’m complaining. I’ll never forget lying beside him on a blanket over a hardwood floor that night, thinking already that I wasn’t as young as I used to be, staggered by my luck at somehow maneuvering the man I loved – too mild a word, love, the man I adored – out of the arms of a flawless blonde bombshell. The moon lit up the window apertures like floodlights and our bare bodies glowed silver as we traced disbelieving fingers over each other. 

“This is a dream,” he’d whispered to me, some time in the night, as I lay on top of him, memorizing the curve of his eyebrow through sight and touch and taste. 

I reached for his hand, which had settled on my bottom as if it belonged there, and tapped the back of it three times. “No dream,” I said. “But not quite real yet either. Not until we tell someone.”

My eyes must have reflected some lingering uncertainty, because he rolled us onto our sides, propped himself up on one elbow, and said, “I’ll go comm the entire crew right now. What should I tell them?” His lips slid down my neck as he began to offer options. “I’m keeping your captain up all night bringing her to ecstasy over and over again on the floor. I’m madly in love with your captain. I’m kidnapping your captain and taking her to Trebus. I’m marrying your captain. I’m having a hutful of gorgeous brown babies with your captain.” 

He rolled me under him as I started to laugh. “I don’t recall agreeing to all of that,” I breathed, trying to clear my head and failing as his mouth continued its progress down my body.

“Oh but you will,” he grinned, looking up at me from somewhere around the bottom of my rib cage. I lay back and sighed. I remember thinking that eventually my critical thinking skills would return and I’d manage to say no to at least a few of his delirious plans, but in retrospect, that never happened where he was concerned. When we staggered down to breakfast the next morning, so sore we could barely navigate the stairs, my mother snickered and said, “You two can sleep in the bed, you know. I have earplugs.” 

With that hot memory on my mind, I rose out of the water enough to straddle my husband and relax slowly onto him. He threw back his head and moaned my name as I took him inside me, then opened his eyes with the hungry, hooded look I so love. “I will never get tired of watching you do that,” he said, as I leaned back against his knees and began to move against him. 

His climax was smooth and feline, like a great cat stretching and roaring. “I will never get tired of watching you do that,” I told him, after he’d melted under me. 

He reached for my breast with a smile. “Your turn.”

“Not just now,” I said as I leaned in to kiss him. I shifted to settle under his arm and rest my head on his shoulder. We lay there tangled together like on so many other quiet evenings, watching the Pleiades begin to show themselves. “I remember the first night we spent together in this house,” I said, just loudly enough for him to hear.

He kissed my temple. “So do I. I was afraid you’d change your mind and throw me out in the morning.”

“I was afraid you’d come to your senses and go back to her.” There was a time when I would have hesitated to say those words, when a tiny fear still lived in me that he might regret his choice, somewhere deep. But he had long ago put an end to all that. 

On the night when we watched that same blonde bombshell step onto the dance floor with her new husband for the first time, my own beloved husband turned and caught me watching him. It was only a few months after Mabel’s birth. I felt worn and inelegant, and out on the floor in her silvery dress, the blonde looked as if she were cut from the starlight itself. He took my hand, kissed it, and held it against his cheek with an expression of infinite tenderness. His gaze penetrated to the place at the core of my being where the last shard of ice persisted, and dissolved it. At last he said, “I’m the luckiest man alive.”

Holding me in the hot tub, he simply said, “I’ll never come to my senses when it comes to you.”

After a long silence enjoying those words, I asked: “So you think I should give Mabel and Andrew my blessing?” I knew he could hear my reluctance. I long ago gave up trying to hide anything from him.

“I think you should meet him first. He’s nothing like his father. Well,” he paused for a brief qualification, “he’s cocky as hell. But I recall a young pilot very much like him who came to be one of your finest officers and best friends.”

“Tom Paris?” I asked in astonishment, splashing upward. “He reminds you of Paris?”

He nodded, unruffled. “Pre-B’Elanna Paris,” he said. “The guy you had to bust out of prison. But with the same potential. And he’s had the good fortune to meet his soulmate earlier in life.”

I settled back against him to let the stars and his touch seep a little of the anxiety from me. It was too soon. They were too young. I would get paired up with Peter Fellows for a dance at the wedding. “I don’t like it,” I said without really meaning to speak.

“I know, darling,” he murmured against my hair.

“What will you say when he asks you for her hand?” I wondered.

“I’ll tell him what your mother told me when I asked for yours.”

I turned my head to get a look at his profile. Of course, he was smiling. He adored my mother. They always kept secrets from me – just little things, little surprises that they’d spring on me together, howling like coyotes in delight when she turned up unannounced a few days before Eday’s birth, or they brought together half the quadrant for my fiftieth birthday party. “What was that?” I asked.

“She told me that I seemed lovely, but any man who thought your hand was a thing to be requested and handed out like a cut of beef at the market had things to learn that she couldn’t teach me. She wished me luck. I knew then how much I was going to like her.”

My mother’s words – so new yet so recognizable all these years after her passing – made me laugh aloud. “That’s Mother, all right.”

“And did I learn?” He squeezed my shoulder. “Have I been a good husband to you, my beloved?”

I twisted and stretched to kiss him. “The best,” I said. “And the best father, and godfather, and uncle. If you really think Andrew has all that in him, I suppose I’d better meet him and see for myself.”

“I see how much he loves her. When I stopped by the hangar last week, I heard raised voices in one of the offices. Andrew was arguing with his superior for Mabel to be included on the list of test pilots for the new FTL shuttle. Commander Zarutsky seemed to have the idea that she’s gotten breaks she doesn’t deserve because she’s a Janeway. You should have heard Andrew defend her. He said he’s flown with the best Starfleet has to offer, and even without taking into account her considerable technical skill, she puts them all to shame on raw talent. It brought tears to my eyes.

“Then Zarutsky accused Andrew of advocating for her because he’s sleeping with her. Andrew asked him to step into the holo-jujitsu scenario so they could finish the conversation.”

I gasped. “He did not! To his superior officer? What did Zarutsky say?”

“He didn’t have to say anything. I stepped in at that point and told him that if he had any doubts about Ensign Janeway’s qualifications, he should look at her performance in the most recent engagement simulations.”

“In which she outscored every single pilot in the fleet,” I said with a chuckle. We’d celebrated those results with champagne and a big dinner on the back patio, as the perfect Indiana sunset fell and the fireflies came out. What a night.

“Then I dismissed Andrew and told Zarutsky that if I ever heard him repeat his insinuations about my daughter, I’d take it up with him in the holo-boxing scenario.”

“Chakotay!” I scolded. “You are aware that you’re seventy-two years old, aren’t you?”

“I’d take that snotty little punk in the first round, and I’d enjoy it.”

I patted his chest. “Of course you would, dear. We should go in. I can’t afford to get more wrinkled than I already am.”

#

Of course I made him wait. By the time I called Andrew into my office at the research compound, he’d been drinking my assistant’s warp plasma coffee for forty-five minutes and looked ready to levitate. He was still in his flight suit. My summons hadn’t given him time to change. I wanted to see him as he was, not primped and on guard. He stepped in the door, saw me standing behind my desk, and immediately saluted.

“Captain!” he exclaimed, then stood at attention as I came around my desk to inspect him. Mabel must have warned him how I feel about being called “ma’am.” After I’d taken a good look – tall, well built, but with an unfortunate resemblance to his father – I told him, “At ease, Ensign, before you strain something.” 

He moved his feet apart and stood stiffly at parade rest. I faced him. He was nearly a head taller, so I had to look up, but height has never intimidated me. “You’ve been asking to see me,” I said. “What did you want to say?”

A flash of hope and excitement passed across his face that made him seem less robotic. I wondered for a second if I was being too hard on him, then dismissed the thought. There would be plenty of time to be nice to him if he passed inspection.

Andrew cleared his throat, as if preparing for a speech. Oh dear, he was going to recite. “As you know,” he said, “I’ve asked Mabel to marry me, and she’s said yes.”

I lifted an eyebrow. “Oh yes. I’m well aware.”

“I realize it’s old-fashioned, and I hope it doesn’t offend you, but it would mean a great deal to me if you would give us your blessing.” He spoke clearly and made eye contact. His overall demeanor was sincere. He could have done worse.

“Why?” I demanded. “Don’t you plan to marry her regardless of what I think about it?”

He cast an uncomfortable glance at his shiny boots. “Permission to speak freely?”

I rolled my eyes. “For heaven sake, Fellows, we’re talking about you marrying my only daughter. I think we’re past the formalities stage.”

“Yes.” He swallowed again. I imagined all that coffee was hitting him in the bladder right about now. I smiled inwardly … but not at him. “I know she’d go ahead with it – she might even do it to spite you if you told her not to” – which was true and made me laugh, just a little.

“I see we’re talking about the same Mabel,” I said.

“Yes,” he agreed, letting his shoulders relax just a notch. “But I know how much she loves you and her father. If I can’t really be part of your family, if she always has to withhold the part of herself that’s yours, I know it will always be a barrier between us.”

“Go on.”

He warmed to his topic and brought his hands out from behind his back. “I don’t want her to feel as if she has to choose, or compromise. She’s such an amazing woman. Brilliant, and strong, and the most incredible, instinctive pilot. I don’t want our marriage to make her anything less than she is, and her family is such an important part of what she is. And I admire both of you so much.” This last sentence he said in a softer voice, as if it embarrassed him a little to admit it.

I turned away at some point during this speech, because I didn’t want young Fellows to see the tears in my eyes. “Have you spoken to her father yet?” I asked, facing the windows.

“Yes,” he answered. “He told me I needed to talk to you first.”

I nodded. How like him. “I had a message from your father this morning, you know.”

“From my father?” Andrew’s tone was shocked and newly fearful. “He contacted you? What did he say?”

Now fully under control, I turned back. “Oh, same old Peter. Called from his yacht. Wanted to be sure, in his delightfully subtle way, that I understood how lucky Mabel would be to marry into the Fellows clan.”

Andrew’s hand went to his face and covered his eyes. “Please,” he began.

“But then he said something else, something rather out of character. He told me that he knows he can be abrasive, and he hopes that I will forgive you for any offense he has caused. He says that you’re a better man than he is, and he knows how much Mabel means to you.” 

Andrew lowered his hand to reveal a face full of apprehension. “Do you?” he asked. “Do you forgive me? I promise I’ll keep him at a distance. You won’t have to deal with him but once or twice.”

I stepped right up to him and studied his face, wondering if this earnest stranger really could be another of my sons. “You might have to forgive me a time or two, if you go ahead with this. I’m old, and I like things my way. And you’re far too young. I give it six months.”

Now he was trying to suppress a broad smile. “I will do my best to be a model husband and son-in-law. I promise. Does this mean you’ll give us your blessing?”

I sniffed. “Well, you still have to talk to her father, and he’s no pushover. If he agrees, then I’ll give my blessing, not before.”

His head bobbed. “Yes. Thank you so much. Permission to leave?”

I stepped behind him and opened the door. “Two more things,” I said in a voice too low for my assistant to hear from the outer office. “Just so we’re clear. I don’t dance with your father, and if you hurt Mabel, I’ll have you spaced. Understood?”

Andrew snapped to attention and saluted again. “Understood!” he barked.

“Dismissed.”

END


End file.
